The Common Core State Standards Initiative outlines standards of learning in English language arts/literacy and mathematics for K–12 students across America. Established in 2009 and adopted by 42 states, the District of Columbia, four territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity, Common Core shifts the focus of elementary and secondary education toward ensuring students gain the key skills necessary for success in today’s universities and workplaces. A major focus of Common Core standards is developing students’ skills in argumentative or expository writing.
To prepare students for expectations in postsecondary education and career, Common Core emphasizes evidence-based writing that requires evaluation of sources and presentation of well-reasoned arguments. While narrative and creative writing are still incorporated into lessons, the standards emphasize utilizing evidence from provided textual sources to support claims and theses. Students are expected to cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what a text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. In laying out expectations for written arguments, Common Core stresses introducing precise, knowledgeable claims. Students must support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence from credible sources, using words, phrases, and clauses to link the major sections of the text cohesively.
The Common Core standards indicate writing assignments should provide graduated levels of complexity as students advance through grade levels. For example, grade 7 standards expect students to conduct short research projects drawing on several sources, with some focus on generating additional questions for further research and investigation. By high school, students should be able to conduct both short and sustained research projects to answer a question, analyzing and synthesizing multiple sources to gather and organize information from diverse perspectives. At all levels, the writing standards emphasize developing topics with well-chosen, relevant, and sufficient facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience’s knowledge of the topic.
While critics have charged that Common Core promotes a “one-size-fits-all” educational model, the standards allow flexibility in how schools structure curricula and assessments to meet their unique student populations. Furthermore, the writing standards do not prohibit creative or narrative writing but rather aim to ensure graduates are equipped with the essential skills of evidential writing demanded by postsecondary coursework and white-collar careers. Students must learn to utilize provided sources to support analytical claims in order to succeed in college research papers and work assignments that expect a foundation in logic, citation of credible evidence, and coherent organization of thoughts and information.
In practice, Common Core-aligned writing instruction engages students through inquiry-based lessons and modeling of analytical process. For example, teachers may pose an open-ended question related to core themes or topics being studied. Students analyze a variety of print and digital sources to form their initial conclusions. Teachers then lead class discussions unpacking how well various sources support different perspectives on the issue. Students collaboratively build annotated bibliographies categorizing and evaluating the utility of each source. This type of Socratic seminar style dialogue empowers students to think critically about validity of information and reliability of authors or publishers.
Teachers further model outlining an argumentative essay responding to the initial prompt through close reading of core text passages and citing relevant quotes with analysis. Students then work independently or in small groups to draft their own argumentative essays on the topic, incorporating summary and analysis of at least three sources that help defend their claim or thesis. Throughout the drafting process, teachers confer with students, asking guiding questions to ensure ideas are logically organized and sufficient evidence is integrated from credible sources. Students proceed through multiple revisions, polishing organization, improving style and conventions, and strengthening inclusion of text-based evidence. Finished drafts undergo peer review workshops before a final polished paper is submitted.
Such process-oriented writing instruction cultivates the higher-order thinking skills expected by Common Core. By breaking down multi-step research and composition into manageable scaffolds, teachers support all students – regardless of entering ability levels – in gradually gaining mastery of demanding evidence-based argument. While academic writing comes more naturally to some, a hallmark of Common Core is developing these essential capacities in every student through a progression of increasingly sophisticated practice. Done well through project-based units tailored to grade-level standards, Common Core writing instruction equips each young person with communication abilities and habits of critical analysis that serve as stepping stones to future educational and professional accomplishments.